How We Organize Ourselves

Prep begin the year by inquiring in to systems and being organized. In P.E, we explore game, team and scoring systems.

This unit focuses on PE sessions only as Prep use their swimming sessions to continue their swimming development

 

Central Idea: Systems help us to stay organized

Key Concepts: Function, connection, responsibility     Related Concepts: Systems, organization

Lines of Inquiry: 1. The concept of an organization 2. Systems of organization we use personally. 3. Systems of organization in our community.

 

To tune in to this unit we began with a discussion about the ways in which students organized themselves at home. Students described ways in which their bedrooms/playrooms were organized and their responsibilities (cleaning up). We also discussed ways in which their classroom was organized (Shelves, desks, tubs, charts etc). The students then completed a walking tour of the P.E store room so they could see the ways in which we (P.E dept.) organized and stored all of our equipment.

To undertake some prior knowledge, I informed the students that we would then play a game on the court for a bit of physical activity time. I chose “Stuck in the mud” for the first game and simply told the students the name of the game and that that P.E teachers would be “it”. We played the game for about 7 minutes before having a water break and a quick discussion. I asked the students to demonstrate what to do when you get stuck and how to save someone and how they knew this. Demonstrations ensued and answers mostly related back to students previous experiences. I then asked, “How did you know who was it?” The students immediately answered that they knew the teachers were “it” and that they could see us because we were tall.

Stuck in the Mud and the systems for being stuck and for saving someone

I then informed the students we would play the game again but with students as “it” instead of teachers and asked them if they knew a way in which we could make them stand out, so we knew who was “it”. One student answered that all the “Geckos” could be it (Green house team) and so we used that system to help us play the game. I remarked that we now know the system for actually playing the game, being stuck and saving people but also we knew the system for telling who was it, all the students in green shirts. We played the game again before another drink break and another change in the game. I told the students that I would like a mix of house team members for the next game and challenged them to come up with a way to distinguish who was “it”. A student remarked that we could use some of the pink team vests  (which just happened to be hanging up close by) as a way to tell who was “it”.

 

Learning Experiences (Weeks 2-5)

In the next few weeks, I used a similar approach to set up different games for the students to play by exploring the systems required to play each game. The students were required to reflect on previous experiences and prompted with questions such as: How does the game start? What do you have to do? Who starts where? What next? How do you score? Go out? Get back in? How does the game finish? After exploring the systems required to play, we participated in the game for that week before having drink breaks with some rule/team changes.

 

Octopus and Stuck in the Mud Revisited – Week 2

Octopus – Three or four students wear the pink vests and stand in the middle of the boundary area, in our case it was the basketball court. The rest of the kids line up at an end of the court and when the tagger says go the students all run to the other side of the court. Whoever the tagger tags then has to stay and help, except that the additional people that are tagged have to stand leaving one foot planted on the ground. They can only help by using their arms and stepping across to tag other students as they run past.  This goes back and forth until your down to the last person.

Stuck in the Mud Revisited – The students were quite eager to play stuck in the mud again and this time I asked them if they knew of any other ways in which they might be “stuck” in the mud. As there was no response, I demonstrated the leap-frog system where the person tagged crouches down low to the ground and a partner saves them by leap-frogging over them. In this way, we added another system for playing the game.

Octopus in bright orange to tell who is it     A new system for being stuck & saving

 

Cat & Mouse and Popcorn – Week 3

Cat & Mouse – The players form a circle by joining hands except for the player called the “cat” and the other player the “mouse”. The mouse starts in the circle and the cat on the outside. The game starts when the mouse goes under the arms of any two players in the ring. The cat tries to tag the mouse while running around the ring. The mouse can always jump back into the ring, but the cat is not allowed inside. The mouse can only stay inside the ring for a few moments and has to get out after. The players in the ring can help protecting the mouse by raising their arms so the mouse can easily come inside and they can block any attempts by the cat to reach for the mouse inside the ring. When the mouse is tagged, new students will be selected to be the cat and mouse.

Popcorn – Popcorn is played using exercise mats to set up a large circle in the centre of the basketball court (or any space you have). One team starts inside the circle and are inside the popcorn machine with a large number of soft balls with them inside. The game begins when the team inside begin to throw the balls (popcorn) out of the machine and on to the court. The other team on the outside of the circle retrieve the balls and must bring them back to the popcorn machine placing them back inside. The game ends when the team inside the circle have all of the popcorn out of the machine or when an allocated period of time ends.

Cat & Mouse and opening & closing gates   Popcorn is about to start popping!

 

Scoring Systems – Football & Basketball – Week 4

This week I decided to change the direction of the unit a little and get away from games and focus on scoring systems within games. I began this session by giving each student a football and instructing them to run around the court keeping control of their ball. Then, I changed the activity to a goal scoring one where students could run around and shoot at any goal to see how many goals they could score. Some clever students discovered that staying in one spot means you can score lots of goals! We then had a water break and a discussion.

I asked the students if they knew how many points you get if you score a goal in football. A large number of the students responded correctly with the number 1. We then played a team goal scoring game where all students again had a ball and could dribble to any goal to shoot. Once they scored, they needed to return to the middle of the court to add one point to the team scoreboard. After 5 minutes, time was up and we came to the middle to discuss how sports have different scoring systems to help keep that game organized. I asked the students if they knew of any other games with different scoring systems which led to a short discussion about a number of sports and then to basketball. I gave the students a basketball each to dribble around the court and try to shoot baskets for a few minutes to get our bodies moving again.

Students add on their own points as they score goals

 

I then asked the students if they knew how many points you get if you score a basket in basketball. Most students answered one but a student did stumble upon the number two after I indicated it isn’t normally one point. I then explained how there could be a situation to score one, two or three points in basketball before telling the students that the next game was a basket scoring activity where each student had a ball and could bounce the ball around to any of the baskets available. After they shot and made a basket, they would then come to the middle and add either two or three points (if it was a long shot) to the scoreboard in the centre of the court to see how many points we could make as a class.

Making as many baskets as possible             Scoring all the points

 

Reflection – Week 5

I decided to conduct a week of reflection in order to gather our ideas and all that we had learned in relation to systems that help to keep us organized in PE and sport. We discussed for playing each game before trying Octopus, Stuck in the Mud and Popcorn before having a well earned drink break. Then we reflected on the scoring systems we had learned before undertaking the team scoring challenges for football and basketball again.

 

Summative Assessment

The summative assessment task for this unit was conducted in small groups (4-5) where the students were asked to complete a number of games (ones I was fairly confident they knew). Each group worked with a teacher who gave them a ball and asked them if they knew how to play tunnel ball? No other instructions were given and the students were observed as to their knowledge, understanding and group work to achieve the team goal. If no students knew the game then the teacher would instruct the group how to play and then observed. Following tunnel ball, a similar activity was again conducted but this time the game was Under and Over to make more observations of the students knowledge of the systems that helped to keep the game organized.